Hold On To Your Stars
by Trench
Summary: AU; Percy's in the army, Annabeth's back home, and ninety days is a lifetime.
1. Chapter 1

It' s 5:28am, and Annabeth's losing her boy today.

She feels sick. She's curled up on the balcony, chair creaking slightly as she tucks her legs up and rests her chin on her knees.

It's that familiar nausea; days like today always bring it. She can't quite sit still, always shifting or moving or fidgeting, because if she pauses she thinks she might freeze. Annabeth taps her fingers impatiently, wishes suddenly that Piper were here to comfort her. She'll see Piper tonight, in any case, it's sort of a ritual that when their boys board that plane back to combat they spend a few miserable days together, because company is always nice at the beginning, and the company of someone who understands is better.

It's 5:28am, and in two minutes their alarm will go off, Percy will wake up. In three and a half hours he'll be gone. Three more months. Three more months with Percy completing his last tour of duty. He'll be home safe, after that, back at the base nine to five. But he has ninety-odd days to get through in Afghanistan, first, and an hour in that place is dangerous. Ninety days is a lifetime.

She tries to think about something that'll calm her down, mundane nothings. Her job, her big desk, Executive Vice President plaque that means as much to Percy as it does to her, the weather, the crack in the wall, anything.

It doesn't work.

She swallows, takes a deep breath and rests her head back against the wall, shuts her eyes for a moment. She didn't sleep all night, of course, and it's catching up with her now.

She supposes she should take the opportunity to get used to the silence.

Of course, at that moment Annabeth hears the sliding door move just a fraction, and looks up. Percy's poking his head through the door, watching her with this unbearably fond look on his face.

"Hey," Percy says, smiling, "what're you doing out here?"

I don't want you to go.

It's the first and only thing that will enter her head every time she looks at Percy today, she knows it. She'll never say it out loud, of course, but those words are a constant stream in her mind; I don't want you to go, I don't want you to go, I don't want you to go.

"Just wanted some air," she says with a smile, Percy walking over and standing in front of her, hands lazily entwining with hers. He's smiling, small and retrospective. Annabeth's chest feels preemptively tight, but it's not time for that yet.

"Yeah. Hey," Percy says, face lighting up in a smile, "I love you."

Annabeth rolls her eyes and laughs; they're always so, so ridiculous on mornings like this. And this isn't even the worst of it; Percy's only been home for two weeks on his mid-tour respite. When he goes back to the war after six months, they're more or less tripping over each other to see who can say it first.

"I love you too," she says, standing up. She throws his arms around Percy's neck and jumps up, wrapping her legs around his middle. Percy laughs, hands coming to hold Annabeth against him, and Annabeth loves that, the feeling of his fingertips pressing into her skin.

She kisses him gently, can feel the muscles in Percy's shoulders and back flexing and tensing under her weight. There aren't a lot of advantages to dating a boy in the army; this, however, is one of them.

Percy breaks off after a while, lazy kisses falling to a smile and their foreheads pressed together.

"I'm gonna have a shower," he murmurs, voice a little strained under Annabeth's weight, and she loves that too, "come with?"

"Sure," Annabeth says, feet curling against the cool tiles as Percy puts her down again. It'd been quite a night last night—always is, when Percy's about to go back. He can't drink on those nights, but boy can he fuck. Annabeth wishes they could afford to take their time, but they're always in a rush—he's always leaving. Not any more after this, she reminds herself. After this she'll have him with her all the time, safe and sound.

She turns from Percy and goes to make her way inside, but hears Percy chuckling behind her.

"What?" she asks, turning back with narrowed eyes. Percy just bites his lip and smiles.

"You're walking funny," he says with a shit-eating little smirk on his face. Annabeth scowls ata him. "You're actually walking funny. Getting old, sweetheart."

"Shut up," Annabeth glares, darting away from Percy with a yelp as he goes to try and wrap her up in his arms from behind. What she really means to say, of course, is I don't want you to go, but she won't.

She lets Percy go into the shower first, wraps herself up in the duvet for a moment and tries to center herself, calm the nausea in her stomach and the pounding in her head; I don't want you to go I don't want you to go I don't want you to go. By the time she makes it to the bathroom and opens the shower door, the room is full of steam and the smell of soap; Percy grins as she slips in, curls an arm around her waist and kisses her properly, water running between them. He kisses Annabeth against the bathroom wall soft, slow, his breath hot and wet in her ear, the words waiting on her lips drowned out by the sound of the shower, and she knows the trail of bruises he's leaving on her neck will stay for weeks. He kisses across her nose and cheeks and eyelids and Annabeth tries not to think of it as goodbye, as the last time, tries to enjoy it. She curls a hand over Percy's shoulder as he pushes her hair back with a soapy hand, and even when the suds sting her eyes, she tries to keep them open, because these are the last few hours she's going to see Percy's face for a long, long time.

* * *

0840.

There are too many clocks at the base, Annabeth decides. Always have been, since the first time she came here to see Percy off. That time, it'd only been a few weeks in Sudan, a small peacekeeping mission. Sometimes she wishes she could go back and tell that nearly catatonic version of herself to calm the fuck down, and to trust him, because things get a thousand times worse.

She glances around the holding room for a second, takes in the all too familiar sight. All the boys in uniform, kissing teary girlfriends goodbye, hugging small kids while their wives watch on, lips pressed into a tight smile and eyes worried. From eight till eight thirty, the place is generally chaos, everyone running around and saying hello and goodbye, last minute checks and packing. But at that half hour mark the shift always comes in; it gets quieter and a little more subdued and if they're anything like Annabeth's, everyone's hearts get a little heavier, it becomes a little harder to breathe and think straight and put one foot in front of the other.

She hates these mornings. Hates the way the nervous, dull fear sits in the air, hates even thinking about the other people here because jesus, she doesn't know how they do it. She can barely handle it, and she's only got herself to worry about. There are women here with two or three kids, mortgages, cars, bills, and, like, lives.

Annabeth sees Piper and Jason in the corner; Piper, leaned up on the wall rolling her eyes as Jason laughs, running a hand down his cheek and smiling a moment later, threading her fingers through the dog tags around Jason's neck. Annabeth draws her gaze away after a moment; she and Piper will commiserate later. It's kind of a tradition that on days like this they watch the plane leave, find the nearest bar, and sniffle into each other's shoulders over the strongest drinks they can find. Besides, Annabeth has her own goodbye to focus on.

Fuck.

"Don't let that couple next door keep using your car space, okay, I mean it. They're such assholes about it, if they want it make them pay the forty bucks a week."

Annabeth just blinks up at Percy a little disbelievingly.

"That's it? You're about to fly off for three more months and your parting words are about my parking space?"

Percy laughs, threads his fingers through Annabeth's gently, between them, hidden like something special. "No," he says, "no, I just…you know. I'm bad at this. It's the worst part."

Annabeth nods, smiles with her mouth but not her eyes, looks down at her shoes. "Yeah, I know."

"We board in three minutes," Percy says, glancing at his watch. Annabeth always loves how he looks in uniform, all pressed and strong and proud, shoulders broad, jaw set. She likes the way he has his bag slung over his shoulder, his lazy walk in his boots, the metal flash of his tags. Today, though, it's just making her want to burst into tears.

"This is a record," Annabeth says. "This is the longest I've gone on one of these mornings without crying."

Percy laughs, surprised.

"Am I losing my touch?" Percy asks, pressing a kiss to Annabeth's right cheek, then her left. Annabeth stops him from dropping the third on her lips, though, smiles at him gently and brushes a thumb across his mouth instead. Her thumb catches on Percy's bottom lip, drags a little. Percy just laughs again, but it's quieter. Annabeth can tell he's just looked at the clock behind her.

"Nah," Annabeth says, grinning, and she knows that the affection in her eyes can probably be seen from space but she doesn't really care anymore. "Of course not."

She runs a hand down the curve of Percy's neck, wishes she could pull him away, into the car, back home. "Just saving myself. I was considering breaking security and running out onto the tarmac this time. Too much?"

Percy hums a little and pulls Annabeth in by her belt loops. Annabeth doesn't stop him this time, can't. Percy hugs her impossibly tight, breathing her in, her neck and her hair and her smell.

"Maybe," he murmurs, like he's trying to bury the words under Annabeth's skin, "maybe just a little over the top."

Annabeth glances back up at the clock from where Percy's got his head pressed into her shoulder. 0843. They're running out of time now. She never knows how to do a long goodbye, the drawn out saga. She never knows how to do it until it's a matter of seconds till Percy's gone, and then it's like her brain kicks into overdrive. She feels it now, the way her heart flips and tries to jump out of her chest, the way her arms involuntarily hold Percy tighter, the way her legs feel like they might give out, if she let them. The tears prick at her eyes, fall into Percy's neck as she tries valiantly not to let them spill over.

"I'm going to miss you so much," she says, voice small, lips pressed to Percy's ear. She's acutely aware of how shaky her own breath sounds, how shaky she feels, like she might topple over should there be a particularly strong gust of wind. Percy pulls back from the embrace that holds them like a vice, brushes his fingers through Annabeth's hair and wraps a blond curl around his finger.

"I'm gonna miss you more, sweetheart," he whispers, all husky and gravel and Annabeth isn't going to hear that for so many weeks and she has to bite her thumb to stop herself letting out a choked little sob.

"Not possible," she says, voice wavering, sniffing a little to try and regain some semblance of self-control. "And, you know, at the risk of sounding completely redundant," she says, swallowing hard because no matter how many times she says it it won't be enough, "please be safe. Please. Please come home."

"I always come home, Annabeth," he says, and before Annabeth can respond, Percy takes her by the wrist and drags her through the small terminal door, around the corner into a corridor.

Annabeth knows it well: it's the Goodbye Corridor, has been countless times. But it's 0844, if the clock in here is anything to go by. And suddenly Annabeth feels like she hasn't said enough, like it's come too quickly and she hasn't done anything, hasn't told him how much she loves him, how much fun this two weeks has been, how much more fun it'll be when Percy's home properly, hasn't told him all the places she wants to go on vacation, or that she knows his top five favourite shirts, bands, TV shows. And Percy makes Annabeth want to go and save the world or give all her money to ASPCA because he's just so good that he makes Annabeth want to be good too, and Annabeth wonders if she's ever told him that. Because what if I never do get to tell him, and she hates herself for thinking that but she can't help it, none of them can, no one in this whole terminal, it's always there, niggling away, and Annabeth suddenly feels like there's not enough air in this long dark corridor to fill her lungs up.

"Percy," she says, choked up with a hole opening up inside her, and Annabeth isn't a crier but today the tears run down like everything she's said to him and everything she still has to say. Then, again, "Percy," because maybe if she just keeps saying his name something will change, she'll have more time, because she just needs more time, needs a few more minutes, just a few. Just to tell him everything once more.

"Hey," Percy whispers, pressing her back into the wall, "it's okay. I love you. We'll talk, we always do. They have this thing called the telephone now, you know, have you heard of it?"

Annabeth laughs, a tinge hysterically, fists a hand in Percy's shirt before she can stop herself. It's rough, khaki, and she doesn't like how it feels but it's something; it's attached to her boy and that's the only thing it needs to be right now.

"I need to go, Annabeth," he says quietly, "so you gonna kiss me or—"

And Annabeth doesn't need Percy to finish that sentence, just surges up and catches his lips with her own with a little noise, a little stuttered breath. She can feel Percy smiling against her lips, his hands snaking around between Annabeth and the wall and holding her waist and Annabeth wants to cry because Percy knows she loves that. Percy always says he thinks he could fold her up and keep her in his pocket; Annabeth wonders vaguely if they could try that now, just in case he's right. Percy tilts his head left and Annabeth hiccups a laugh against him because he always does that, and his arms around her go impossibly tighter. He licks into Annabeth's mouth, hands roaming to her hips and lower and no, no, no, it's 0845, Annabeth can hear the commotion outside, and Percy's pulling away and no, I don't want you to go, she thinks desperately, and it's so loud in her head that she wonders if Percy can hear it too.

Percy lays one last kiss on her, sweet and slow and small, before pulling away. Annabeth can see it in his eyes, the way he's getting himself into the right mindset now. He takes a deep breath, runs a hand through his hair.

"C'mon," he says quietly, picking his bag up and brushing his fingers over Annabeth's hand one last time, "come see me off."

Annabeth does. She watches Percy walk out onto the tarmac, jogging to catch up with Jason and Leo, his best friends since they trained together at Marseilles, and she wipes roughly at the tears on her cheek.

She catches a small smile from one of the women across the room, older than her, maybe in her late thirties. She has a look in her eye that says I know how you feel, and Annabeth wonders how long she's been doing this. How long Annabeth will be doing this, how many others there'll be after Afghanistan.

The boys pile into the C130 in single file, and Annabeth sees Percy disappear up the ramp after Jason.

Bye, she thinks, please come home.

* * *

"'Nd then," Piper says from where she's sprawled out on Annabeth's couch, waving emphatically and spilling whiskey onto the floorboards, "and then, I jus' said, like, fuck you, 'f I wanna go 's Bob Marley t' Halloween, I motherfuckin' will."

Annabeth has absolutely no idea what she's going on about; then again, she's fairly sure Piper doesn't either. Piper barks a laugh, buries her head in a cushion and groans loudly. They've been drinking since the middle of the day and it's just coming on midnight now, so. It's been a marathon, to say the least.

"I feel like crap," Piper slurs, mouth stained dark, "what day 's it?"

Annabeth sighs, setting her empty bottle down next to the others on the coffee table. "Still frickin' Monday."

It feels like so long since this morning. She wonders what Percy's doing, if he's okay, if he's on night patrol and up thinking about her, or if he's sound asleep, dead exhausted from the plane. It'll be getting on nine thirty in the morning there; Annabeth's so used to the conversion now that she can still do it when she's downed about three hundred beers. Which is saying something, because she's not even sure she can walk in this state.

"Eighty-seven," Piper mutters to herself, and Annabeth snaps back into the real world, "eighty-fuckin'-seven."

"Wassat?" Annabeth asks, tugging at Piper's braids.

"Eighty-seven days till Jason an' Leo an' Percy are home," Piper says, "we counted last night."

"Oh," Annabeth says, glancing at her watch. It's 12:02. "Well. Eighty-six, now."

Piper hums thoughtfully, and Annabeth feels herself drift off to sleep.

The first week is always utterly awful.

By the time she's gotten rid of the crick in her neck from sleeping in the armchair that night, not to mention her two-day hangover, she's fairly sure she's going to die.

But that's okay. Because it's Thursday, which means tomorrow is Friday.

Tomorrow is Friday. Friday, Friday, Friday, Friday, and Annabeth hasn't heard such good news in what feels like years because today's Thursday which means tomorrow is Friday and when Percy's away Annabeth basically lives Friday to Friday. Friday is the day Percy calls home, and in the absence of his father and the death of his mother and the undisclosed location of his brother, home is Annabeth. (Annabeth kind of hopes she'd be home for Percy anyway, though.) He gets thirty minutes of call time, and so does a fifth of the rest of his company. Jason's day is Wednesday—Piper had been over and hadn't let go of her phone the whole day yesterday, nearly drove Annabeth insane with all her nervous finger tapping and obsessive braiding, but Annabeth knows how it gets.

Tomorrow's Friday, and Annabeth holds onto the thought of that like it's the breath in her lungs.

* * *

Annabeth opens her eyes, adjusts to the light in her room. It's Friday.

It's Friday and Camp Bastion is nine and a half hours ahead of Annabeth's apartment in New York (well, their apartment, really, this is where Percy stays when he's on leave and most weekends when he's at the barracks, so theirs, hers, whatever, it's all semantics), so if she's right since it's six here it's around three in the afternoon in Afghanistan. So sue her, she's up early.

She gets out of bed and has a cup of coffee and reads the paper halfheartedly, doesn't shower because if she misses this call she's quite seriously not getting out of bed until Percy comes home.

So she waits. And waits and waits and waits and considers going for a run or doing her laundry but strikes both those things down because they'll probably be too time consuming and she'd go to that restaurant two blocks over but what if it's too loud and she doesn't hear her phone, and she kind of wants to call her dad but she can't be on the phone because it's Friday and Percy's calling today, jesus, Annabeth, pull it together, and she just about considers cutting her week long leave from work short, but Malcolm's covering for her at the architecture firm anyway, and now that she's looking at it the curtain rod is kind of crooked and she should probably fix it but she doesn't have a ladder and it's not like she'd know how to fix it anyway and—

Brrrrrrrrring.

Annabeth starts and claps a hand over her mouth to stop a surprised and entirely undignified squeal escaping her.

Brrrrrrrring.

That'd be the phone. She should answer it.

She picks it up and slides her finger shakily across the screen, puts it on loudspeaker.

"Hello—"

"You are receiving a call from," the prim automated voice cuts out, replaced with another, "US Army Base Camp Bastion." The first voice chimes back in. "To reject this call, please hang up now. To accept, press—"

"Christ," Annabeth hisses to herself, pressing 1 before it tells her to. She's done this what feels like a few thousand times, she knows the drill.

The phone rings twice, then connects. It's a crackly line, satellite phones inevitably have that affect, but she really doesn't care, because it's Percy.

"Annabeth?" His voice comes down the line, Annabeth can hear the smile in it and practically see the green eyes sparkling at her and she has to rest her head on her knee for a moment, steady herself. She takes a deep breath, like if she takes in enough air she'll be able to smell the green tea extract in Percy's shampoo.

(She can't.)

"Sweetheart, you there?"

"Yeah," she says, a little louder than probably necessary, but yes, she's here. "Hi, love. How…" she takes another breath, and she hears Percy laugh down the line, a little strung out and all nervous energy and Annabeth wants to die, because it's her boy and she's not spoken to him for what feels like a small lifetime and he's here, now, in this bittersweet little space on the phone where he's with her but not with her.

"How are you?"

She hears a rustling, figures that's Percy falling down on his bed or something. He's so far away. Annabeth feels it right in her chest, that distance.

"I'm good," he says, and he sounds tired but Annabeth thinks he's telling the truth, "but it's hot. Like, it's so fucking hot here, jesus."

"Yeah," Annabeth says, "well. Few thousand cute boys packing the place out, Perce, I figure it is."

Percy just snorts, and Annabeth has to bite her lip because she can see the look on his face, the delightfully bewildered furrowed brow. Except, of course, she can't, and it sits on her a bit like a deadweight.

"You're so weird," he says fondly, and, "tell me about New York."

So Annabeth does. She tells him what she's eaten for dinner and about her drawing table that came yesterday. She tells him about Piper and the new superhero movie and that pop star who got caught getting too handsy with her model best friend and the dog in the apartment below theirs that's taken to howling at two in the morning. Annabeth's gotten good at this, is the thing. When they'd first started doing this—and Annabeth will never forget that, Percy all bright and shiny and new and tripping after her for months—Annabeth had never known what to say when Percy said that; tell me about New York. But now she catalogues everything. Reads an article and thinks Percy'll like that, hears a song on KissFM or Hot 97 and writes down the name of it if she thinks it sounds like that stupid pop stuff Percy likes, buys him a t-shirt if she sees something that makes her think Percy. That sort of thing.

And for a second, sometimes, if she talks enough, if Percy laughs or gasps or makes an impressed little noise in the right place, it's almost as though she's sitting right next to him on their old green couch, her legs over his lap after a long day at work. Just for a second.

"You still there?" she asks suddenly, because Percy hasn't said anything in a while.

"Course," Percy says, "just like hearing you talk."

Percy hangs up twenty-seven minutes later, and Annabeth's heart doesn't quite stop aching. Because that's it, now she's got a whole week to wait to hear him again. It's been five days. Eighty-two to go, she thinks, and god, she always forgets how hard this is.


	2. Chapter 2

The next Friday, she and Percy only get to speak for a few minutes because Percy's company is doing a training exercise over a three-day weekend, and, well. She's had a shit day, and she didn't get to talk to Percy, and now this article is sitting in front of her like a big fuck you.

2,238.

2,238 American servicemen have died in Afghanistan so far, and Annabeth feels sick.

She shuts the paper, tosses it out, and goes to bed. Her feet are cold, and her blanket is a million miles away.

* * *

"Yes, precisely. We plan to halve our troop numbers in Helmand province by the end of 2013, and moving into 2014 only have the minimum number of soldiers necessary, so that there can be a smooth transition and handover to the Afghan forces come the end of Operation Herrick."

"And that's something you can guarantee, Mr. President?" the journalist presses, glancing at her notes.

The president nods, assured. "Of course, absolutely."

Annabeth flicks the TV off and goes to call her mother. He better be right.

* * *

The trees put out green leaves for the last time this year. Fall is coming, and Percy isn't here to see it. Percy loves the end of summer; he can't cope with the dryness. (Annabeth ignores the fact that he spends half his time in a bona fide desert.)

The ache in Annabeth's chest grows, and although she tries to brush it off as something else, she knows it's because it's nearly August 18.

The 18th of August appears kind of out of the blue, funnily enough. Annabeth's been trying to keep busy, going to work, going to the gym once or twice; it's important to get back into everything, her own life, after the first couple of weeks. She's had a not-awful fortnight, which is about all she can hope for when Percy's overseas.

But it's August the 18th, now, and it's been a month.

More importantly, though, it's been three years.

Annabeth's stayed up till midnight even though she has work at 8am, because it's important to her. Even if Percy's not here, it's important. She wants to celebrate it properly.

She distinctly remembers the fourth day of Percy's mid-tour break, when they'd realised their anniversary would be while Percy was away.

"No," Percy had pouted, pulling Annabeth closer so she was sat in between his legs on the couch. Annabeth had just leaned back into him, pressed a kiss to his cheek. "No, no, no, we're not allowed to go three years without me here."

Annabeth had smiled at that, hooked Percy's legs around her own. "'There's nothing we can do, Percy. It's okay. We'll have the next one."

Percy had sighed, unsatisfied with that. "You know the present for three years is, like, leather," he'd grumbled, "the hottest one, and I don't get to be here for it."

"I think those guidelines are for wedding anniversaries," Annabeth had noted dryly, "but still. You better not've bought me a whip that I can't use, or I'll end you."

Percy laughed into her hair, chest pressed to her back, silence taking over for a moment.

Then: "Write me a letter," he'd said suddenly, "write me a letter and I'll write you one and we'll swap and we won't open them till the day. It'll be nice."

So they had. And Annabeth's rifling through her bedside drawer now, memory playing like an old record in her head, until she pulls the card out, big blocky Annabeth on the front with a little heart on the end of the h.

She thinks her heart might break in two. She tears the envelope open, though, pulls out the goofy card with two little ducks nuzzling each other on the front. Trust, she thinks. She opens it, gingerly, wills the lump in her throat away.

_Sweetheart,_

_I'm going to be a couple of oceans away from you when you read this, unless you've opened it early in which case I'm sticking my tongue out at you. But I hope you haven't. I hope it's August 18 and you're sitting on your bed and doing that thing where you bite your lip so you don't get too teary, like when we watch Band of Brothers. And for the record, I still don't get why you like that show so much._

Annabeth lets out a surprised laugh, bites her lip harder and sniffles a little.

_I'm so sorry I'm not there, baby. You know this stuff means the world to me, and it does to you too, and I'm just so sorry. I don't mind missing Christmas, or my birthday, or Valentine's. But I'm sad I'm missing this._

_I don't even know what to write, really, because I'm not that good with words. But you're sitting opposite me right now and I think you're reading the TV Guide even though you're holding up Business Day. You look lovely with your hair down, Annabeth, you don't do that enough, but then you're always lovely. But anyway. You're sitting opposite me and every time I look over at you I keep smiling like an idiot. And I smile like an idiot every time I think of you when I'm away, too, when it's too hot over there and I can't sleep or when we're out in the desert for eight hours or whatever. Even when I'm just at the base back home, and I'm cold or tired or angry; you always make me smile. I don't have a lot of people in my life who I know are always gonna be there, which is why I joined the army in the first place, I guess, and I've met some great people who I know've got my back. But no one's ever been there like you're there, sweetheart. So thank you, for all of it. For the key to your apartment so I can always walk in, for the blue food dye in the cupboard just for me, for buying me concert tickets you know I'll want even though you think the band's dumb._

_But mostly, I guess, thank you for being there every time I come home. Thank you for being the person I think of when I'm on the other side of the world and I think of home._

_Three years is 1,095.726 days, did you know that? I didn't. I googled it. But the point is, I've been yours for one thousand ninety six days, now. And I want to be yours for one thousand ninety six more, and another few after that._

_I love you, and I hope you make me smile like an idiot for a million more years. I hope I sometimes make you smile like that too._

_Lots and lots of love,_  
_Percy_

_PS: your present's in the cocoa puffs, bet you didn't think to look there. xxxxx_

Annabeth reads it again, the whole way through, then her favorite parts, then just one line: Thank you for being there every time I come home.

God.

She wipes at her eyes, pushes her hair off her face and stands up, pads out to the kitchen and opens the pantry, smiling in spite of everything. The letter's still held fast in her hand; she doesn't expect she's going to let go of it any time soon.

She fishes the cocoa puffs out from the back of the pantry: Percy's right, she didn't check the box, mostly because cocoa puffs are disgusting. But she sticks her hand in, comes up with a box and a note.

_Give you the whip when I get home! Happy leatherversary. P xx_

She lets out another little laugh that kind of threads in with her tears, and with her goddamned shaky fingers she opens the box.

It's a book, or something. Annabeth worries her lip between her teerh, not quite sure what it is. She sets the letter down, the box too, and pulls the book out. Then she opens it.

And it turns out that it's not a book, it's a leatherbound photo album.

There's a little scrap of paper tucked inside, too:

_I don't have the right words to tell you how much I love you, but you know what they say about pictures. See you soon, sweetheart._

She slides the piece of paper back in and flicks through the photos slowly, biting her lip the whole time. She and Percy in Paris, freezing their asses off two Christmases ago, Percy's 21st, her dad's wedding night. Reels and reels of photobooths from clubs and bars and parties, Annabeth drunk in Percy's uniform one night; she, Percy, Leo, Piper, and Jason messing around in Central Park; the two of them in swimsuits and clutching cocktails in Barcelona; that day they went to New Jersey for no reason and ate at that endearingly awful Italian restaurant they love. The grainy iPhone photo taken by Leo of the time Percy had first come back from Afghanistan, an embrace so tight Annabeth's not sure how she survived it.

And then it's small things, like Annabeth's coffee mug next to Percy's on the counter and photos Annabeth didn't even know Percy had, the two of them around the apartment, Annabeth sprawled across the couch reading, wearing nothing but one of Percy's button downs and her underwear, Annabeth in her aviators looking thoroughly unimpressed at Percy's barracks, a photo Percy's obviously taken himself of him making the album.

And then on the very last page is Annabeth's favorite picture in the whole world, that her brother had taken when they'd gone to Italy with Annabeth's family last year. The two of them asleep on each other in an airport, maybe it was Venice, Annabeth thinks, the world moving impossibly fast around them, a blur, but the two of them sleeping softly, solidly, amidst it.

Percy and Annabeth and all the little bits and pieces that make up their world, and yeah, Annabeth's not bothering to bite her lip now, she just smiles and cries quietly all at once.

For the first time in thirty-one days, it doesn't feel like a million miles when Annabeth falls asleep.

* * *

Percy calls two days later, Friday. Annabeth punches 1 into her keypad so quickly she thinks she might've broken the phone, but the line connects soon enough.

"Percy!" she all but shouts, "good morning, babe, how was breakfast?"

There's a small silence.

"It's afternoon."

His voice is quiet, guarded. Annabeth closes her mouth, bites back her slightly hyperactive word vomit. She swallows.

"Okay," she says gently, "how you doing? Miss you."

Percy sighs, lays down, Annabeth thinks, from what she can hear. "I'm just tired. Really tired, you know."

I miss you too; Annabeth thinks, please. It doesn't come.

So she waits for what always comes next; tell me about New York. But it's just silence. She's not sure they've ever had one of these conversations without that question.

"Yeah, baby, I can imagine," she says, lets the sentiment in her voice hold for a moment. "Hey, I read your card, though. You're a catch, you are."

She expects Percy to laugh, even just to give that little huff of breath that means he's smiling. To say, I got your card too. Happy anniversary and two days.

"What?"

She doesn't, however, expect that. Her heart rate quickens, or maybe falls, she can't tell.

Your card you card your card, the one you wrote me, and please don't say you've forgotten it, the best card I've ever been given, the card I'm considering sleeping with every night you're not here.

"Your card," she says again, carefully, trying to keep the edge out of her tone but failing.

Percy sighs. And if Annabeth's not mistaken, he sounds irritable. "Annabeth, what? My card for what?"

Annabeth traps her breath in her lungs, closes her eyes for a long moment. She shouldn't be disappointed. Percy's on the front line of a war, for christ's sake. It's not a felony if he's forgotten an arbitrary date in their calendar. He's got one or two things going on.

It doesn't stop the sinking feeling that runs through Annabeth's whole body, drags her down.

"Anniversary," she says quietly, "it was Wednesday." And I stayed up until midnight, she thinks, and I slept with that card in my hand.

"Oh," Percy says after a long moment, and for a second she thinks it might be okay, that Percy will apologise and rifle through his bag until he finds Annabeth's card, read it as they're on the phone and maybe, maybe, maybe it'll be okay.

Instead, Percy says "shit," like he's forgotten to put the towels in the dryer or record The Voice, and Annabeth wants to cry.

Annabeth swallows, takes a deep breath.

He forgot. 1,097.726.

"Yeah," she says, out into the silence, "shit. A bit."

"What's that s'posed to mean?" Percy snaps.

Annabeth blinks. Thinks she might need to check she's got the right number, because this whole conversation has been stilted and odd, but that tone, harsh as though he's looking for a fight, that's not her boy.

"What?"

"Look, Annabeth, I'm sorry I forgot, but no need to get all melodramatic on me," Percy says, and then before Annabeth can even wrap her head around what's happening, "do you think you could just say, oh, hey Percy, you're in the middle of Afghanistan, it's okay if you forgot our anniversary and not treat it like a federal fucking case?"

Annabeth opens her mouth, closes it again.

"I said, like, four words."

Percy snorts. "Yeah, with about a thousand words worth of passive aggression embedded in there, so kudos for that."

"Percy, what the hell?" Annabeth's reeling, voice a little high, panicky. She doesn't know how to do this, doesn't want to, doesn't want to spend the thirty minutes she has fighting.

Percy's silent for a long moment, and Annabeth thinks he might've hung up. Her stomach lurches when he speaks again.

"I'm trying, Annabeth. I call every week and I try. I'm sorry I've got a little more on my plate than worrying what my hair's gonna look like if I don't blow dry it, but—"

"What the fuck does that mean?" Annabeth asks quietly, and she's so humiliated, feels so childish and stupid, at once for caring about three years and two days when Percy's sitting in a demountable in Helmand province, and on the other hand for rising to his bait. It doesn't stop her.

"I have a job too, you know, and bills, and friends and my family. Not to mention my boyfriend who's roaming around Af-fucking-ghanistan for a living. So don't go acting like it's all fucking dandy for me, Percy, everyone's got shit."

Percy snorts, and it's derisive and mean. "Yeah, well, I'm sure it's a struggle," he bites back, deathly quiet, "why don't you tell me all about it."

The silence hangs in the air between them; New York City, Northern line transfer at Central Station to the east side line to JFK Terminal 3, Gate 113, arrive in Kabul, go south to Helmand. All the air along that route from this apartment to Camp Bastion, Annabeth thinks, thick with whatever this is, with whatever Percy's mind is doing right now.

Annabeth doesn't rise to his challenge again. It's not that she couldn't, there's no one who knows how to fight dirtier than Annabeth when she needs to. It's, quite simply, that she's too terrified to, too afraid of what's happening here.

"You don't have to call if you don't want to," she says quietly, "if. You know. If it's gonna upset you this much."

No, she thinks, no, no, no, you absolutely have to call, please, please know me well enough to know I don't mean that.

"I'm not upset," Percy says roughly, "I'm fine."

Annabeth wonders just what in god's name Percy's seen today—heaven forbid, what he's done—because this isn't her boy, not at all.

Happy anniversary, she thinks.

The line goes dead.

* * *

Five days later—three years and a week, but she doesn't think about that—she thinks she should probably tell someone, because she hasn't been able to relax ever since that day.

Piper comes over after work, Chinese food in one hand, bottle of wine in the other.

"You look like shit," Piper says when Annabeth opens the door, but she's not joking. There's a softness in her eyes, because she knows, is the thing, she's the only person in Annabeth's whole life who knows, and Annabeth just sort of falls into her, lets Piper hold her up for a minute, because it's been five long days of doing it herself and she's just so tired.

She lifts her head from Piper's shoulder slowly. "Hi," she says miserably, "sorry. Come in, and all that."

Piper does, closes the door and puts a hand on Annabeth's back, steers her to the couch and starts unpacking the food. Annabeth's barely slept since Friday, and she likes that someone else is taking control for the time being.

Piper passes Annabeth a spring roll. "Bad week?" she asks. "You kind of fell off the radar."

"I know," Annabeth says, "sorry. But Piper, I. Percy…" She trails off, listless.

"What is it, honey?" Piper asks gently, "you look so sad."

And Annabeth is sad, right to her bones, because Percy feels so far away. Percy is so far away, and Annabeth is used to that, as used to it as she can ever be. She's not used to this, though. She's not used to it being a question, whether Percy will call her.

So she tells her. She tells Piper everything, the letter and the album and the call, and Piper winces in all the right places and by the end has pulled Annabeth in for a hug, rubbing small circles into her back.

"Oh, Anna," she says, "I would've been here in a second if I knew, honey. I'm so sorry."

"Me too," Annabeth says, quirking a small smile. She feels washed out, now, all the buzzing, anxious energy replaced with a kind of numbness.

Her boyfriend is in Afghanistan and, for all she knows, isn't going to call on Friday. She doesn't care about much else, not really. It's all background.

"Jason did that once, you know," Piper says suddenly, and it makes Annabeth sit up. "Like. A few years ago. Just before we met you guys. We were talking and I brought something up, I dunno. Something about how I had to go to some party all alone, I was obviously kidding. And he just…," Piper says, shaking her head like she still can't believe it, "lost it at me."

"What happened?" Annabeth asks.

"He just, like, really dug into me. A little like Percy, you know, you've got nothing going on in your life, I'm trying my best, all that."

"Yeah," Annabeth says, "that's what he was like."

Piper grabs a box of noodles, hands one to Annabeth and waves her chopsticks as she continues.

"I didn't sleep until he called the next Wednesday," Piper says, rolling her eyes fondly, "all but tripping over himself trying to apologize."

Annabeth just laughs, a little, and she loves Piper so much, for being here, for getting it, for knowing what to say. For bringing her noodles and wine, too.

"I think they feel guilty, sometimes, when they're out there," Piper says suddenly. "Jason told me that once."

"Why guilty?" Annabeth asks. Percy loves prawns in his noodles, she remembers out of the blue, so she leaves one aside automatically, before remembering that Percy's not actually here. She feels a pang of vague queasiness at that, and she doesn't eat the prawn.

"I guess because we're back here, waiting for them, and they don't know how to deal with that," Piper says slowly. "I only ever said it once to him, you know. 'Imagine if it was me going over there, how would you feel,' all of that bullshit when you have those fights. His eyes just about popped out his face. I don't think they like thinking of it like that."

Annabeth nods, considers for a moment. "I know he didn't mean it," she settles on saying, "I just. You know. Wish I could hear from him, or something." Wish I could see the dumb way he sulks when he's angry, wish I could hear the angry music coming from his iPod.

"I know," Piper says, smiling sympathetically, "but hey. Five weeks down, right?"

And seven to go, Annabeth thinks, but she doesn't say it.

* * *

Piper stays for a few hours. They kick back and watch Piper's old college volleyball team play Oregon State and Annabeth doesn't care in the slightest about volleyball, but she feels better, lighter, than she has in days.

"Talk about actual volleyball, god, I hate this," Piper yells at the TV, voice getting slightly louder as she goes. "I can't watch this anymore, sorry," she says to Annabeth. "Mind if I flick around?"

"Go ahead," Annabeth says, tossing her the remote, "you know it's only volleyball though, yeah, it's not like, softball, or an interesting sport, or anything."

Piper flicks her a look that just makes her laugh. "Shut up," Piper says, before the TV grabs her attention again. "Oh, look. Kardashians."

"Nope," Annabeth says, shaking her head, "vetoed. We're not watching this."

"Are so," Piper retorts, topping up both their wine glasses. "Don't pretend you're too good for it, Annabeth, don't chuck a Percy Jackson-esque snobbery episode at me."

"Hey!" Annabeth cries, throwing a cushion at her, "he's not a snob. And I am too good for this, thank you very much."

Piper just rolls her eyes, points at the screen where one of them is crying, dabbing at suspiciously waterproof eyeliner with the corner of a tissue.

"Oh please," Annabeth says, "that's just—"

The doorbell rings, and Annabeth stands up, wanders over to the intercom, wine catching up with her a little. She buzzes whoever it is up without saying anything, it's just the pizza they ordered, because two boxes of noodles are never enough.

"That's so ridiculous," Annabeth says, "I guarantee you her make up would be a mess by now."

"How would you know? Have you secretly started wearing make up?" Piper teases, and Annabeth just laughs over her shoulder as she hears footsteps stop outside her door.

"Yeah, you know me. Mascara, lipstick, face thingies, I've got it all." She opens the door a little, still not turning around to see who's there. "So what, I'm like, au naturale—"

Piper's face has gone very, very pale. Annabeth stops talking. Piper's looking behind her, craning her neck to see who's at the door.

Annabeth pulls it open wider, and finally turns to see who's there.

"Ma'am, are you Annabeth Chase, designated proxy of Lieutenant Percy Jackson?"

She doesn't even remember it, not really. All she sees is the camouflage green, the decorated left breast pocket of the two men at her door, the grave eyes staring back at her. The way the one on the left opens his mouth and starts speaking, but all Annabeth can hear is Percy Percy Percy Percy Percy Percy Percy, over and over, like someone's shouting it right into the back of her brain.

The crash of red as she drops her glass, hands shaking furiously, shards flying and settling like dust over her feet and the boots of the men at his door, the sharp little cry that escapes her mouth as she takes a step back, eyes wide and full of terror, the same terror that's turning her blood cold in her veins.

And the last thing she remembers before she throws up, before Piper's arms somehow appear around her, holding her up, is the last thing Percy said to her.

I'm fine.


	3. Chapter 3

When Annabeth's younger brother Bobby was eleven, he'd gotten a police search party after him. He'd been camping with his boy scout troop when another boy dared him to run off the trail into the woods. Bobby did, and promptly sprained his ankle stumbling over a log. He sat down and started carving a stick, and he didn't blow his emergency whistle once.

The search party found him quickly enough, but Annabeth's mother had only been told that her son had gone missing in the woods. The police had carted him home by the scruff of his neck, told him to sit in the car while they spoke to his mother.

Annabeth's mother had fainted as soon as she'd opened the door, because she'd thought Bobby had been mauled. Annabeth stood back as her mother cried and cried, holding Bobby and rocking him. He didn't even get in trouble, not really, because Annabeth's mother was too busy crying over the fact that he just had a little limp and wasn't lying with his face clawed off in a dark forest somewhere.

Annabeth has no idea why this story pops into her head, but she makes a mental note to hug her mother hard the next time she sees her, because of the many ugly and terrifying moments Annabeth's experienced in her life, nothing beats last night, uniforms at the door.

She remembers to take a breath.

Percy is not dead.

Those are the four words that keep Annabeth sitting upright, keep her listening as best she can to the rotating group of CNOs and Lieutenants and officers in Percy's branch that traipse in and out of her apartment.

Percy is not dead.

Yet.

And that's the word that has her throwing up for the third time, rushing to the bathroom and holding herself over the toilet, shaking so hard she thinks she might just snap in two.

There was an IED, she was told. Just outside the boundary of Bastion where Percy was patrolling. Percy and five other guys, blown halfway to heaven by pound upon pound's worth of explosives.

_And you better hope he hasn't been blown the whole way_, her brain says before she can stop it, and she wants to switch herself off, go on standby for a bit, because she's walking back to the living room where the grim man in a uniform has been looming all through the night and she doesn't think she can do this.

Yesterday, when they first came in, they had only told her the minimum, but it had been enough to make her heart feel like it was going to beat out of her chest. Now they're beginning to go into detail, and Annabeth wants to cover her ears and curl up under the covers and never come out.

Percy and five other guys and a rogue bomb.

_Five other guys—_That's makes Piper go from concerned best friend to party-with-a-vested-interest in two seconds flat.

"Could you, um," Piper says, hands coming up to rub Annabeth's shoulders. Annabeth feels numb all over, like she's not really here. The only reason she's registering this is because Piper's voice is a welcome change from the droning of the man in front of her. "Could you say who the other five are?"

The Lieutenant shakes his head. "Sorry," he says, "can't release personal information to the public."

"Of course," Piper says hurriedly, "just. My boyfriend's on tour in Helmand too. Can you just…" she swallows, "Jason Grace? Was he there?" She blinks a few times. "Leo Valdez?"

The Lieutenant considers her for a while. Di Angelo, his uniform reads. He casts his eyes down the list momentarily.

"No," he says shortly, "not here."

Piper's shoulders sag in relief, and for the tiniest of flashes, Annabeth hates her, wants to punch her till her knuckles bleed.

Annabeth shudders and stands up straight, extracts herself from Piper's hands for a moment. She leans forward, runs her hands through her hair.

"Can, you, um," she says, furrowing her forehead, shaking her head slightly. The sun's just rising, an odd cool light. "Is there any news?"

"I'm going to go and place a call at the base now," someone says. Annabeth's met her before, somehow, although she has no idea where. The woman touches a hand to Annabeth's arm that makes her jump.

"Great," Annabeth says, although what she wants to say is _okay, and next time could you have done it five minutes before I ask?_ But she doesn't, because it feels like there's too much and not enough information in her head all at the same time.

"Miss Chase—" the Lieutenant starts, but Annabeth cuts him off.

"Annabeth, please," she says, because it's so strange that they still bother with formality.

"Annabeth," he amends, "is there any reason why you're Lieutenant Jackson's next of kin? It's just irregular, is all, to have someone outside of parents or a spouse. We looked for any documentation that said otherwise, there was none."

Annabeth blinks up at him, confused. "Oh," she says, "yeah. Well. Percy's, um, his mother died. And his dad was never around. And he has a brother but we don't know, like, what continent he's on."

And his favorite color is blue and on Mondays we get five dollar nachos from that weird place in Brooklyn and I got him tickets to see a Taylor Swift concert when he gets home because he's so absurdly obsessed with her and he likes that kind of thing.

"So," she finishes instead, "it's just me."

The Lieutenant nods. All seems to be in order, then, Annabeth thinks, except for how it isn't at all.

* * *

Piper's sitting a fraction too close, and Annabeth just needs space, needs all these people out of her apartment and to stop hovering like they're going to need to prop her up.

"Piper," she says, "go home and get some rest."

"I can stay if you want," Piper says. "I'm here for you, Anna."

No you're not. It's not your boy. It's not your boy it's not your boy it's not your boy.

For the first time, she realizes, Piper doesn't get it. She can cry and hug and empathize all she wants. It's not her boy. And it shouldn't, but that seems so, so unfair to Annabeth. She can't even look at Piper; the worry in her eyes feels false, trite, surface, because it's not her boy.

"Get some rest," Annabeth says quietly, and Piper slips out five minutes later, closes the door behind her with a thud that rings hollow through Annabeth's chest.

* * *

From what Annabeth can gather, Percy's been in surgery for eleven hours. Or a thousand years. Whichever, it's all the same now.

Eleven hours doesn't sound great to Annabeth. Percy is, apparently, in desperate need of an actual hospital but nowhere near stable enough to survive the trip there.

And god fucking damn it, but Annabeth would've thought in the however many hundreds of years of the US army, someone might have figured that conundrum out by now.

All she can think about is every World War II movie she's ever seen, every half standing, dust covered, understaffed field hospital she's ever glanced at on TV, and she remembers Percy's letter and Band of Brothers and she can't, not now.

She shakes her head, takes a breath.

Lieutenant di Angelo and the woman who Annabeth has learned to be Captain Levesque are talking in hushed tones at the door.

Captain Levesque drops her head, and Annabeth springs up.

"What happened?" Annabeth asks immediately, seeing stars, breath shaking. Captain Levesque looks at her sadly.

"One of the others," she says, "internal bleeding, couldn't stop it. 1218 GMT. 0148 local time."

So. 2,239 total casualties, then.

And Annabeth wishes she could find it within herself to be upset, to draw up her forehead and ask for a name, but she can't. The only thing she can think is _it's not Percy_.

* * *

Percy gets out of surgery. For half an hour, and then his lung ruptures, and he's back in there, indefinite surgery time, not sure what the procedure is, we don't know the extent of the damage.

Everything is uncertain. Annabeth's mind is very, very blank.

Because she's not there. She can cry and yell and care all she wants, but she's not there. She's in America, in her apartment, while Percy's getting half a lung and god knows what else stitched back together, hour after hour after hour. And Annabeth wonders how long they stitch for before they give up.

Eleven hours seems like a long time. She wonders if they'll do another eleven.

"God," she whispers, bites her thumb as she stares out the window.

* * *

A day later, Annabeth gets the letter. Postage paid Army envelope, express stamp on the front. She thinks that maybe it's the official documentation of Percy's condition.

It's not.

Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry

Over and over and over in Percy's handwriting, half the page. And then,

No, but I really am sorry. I had a bad day and I was a dick, and I love you so much, and if I could make you dinner and light a candle to say sorry properly, I would. I read your letter as soon as I hung up. You're too good for me, Annabeth Chase.

53 days to go, though, right? I'll call on Friday, of course I'll call. Always will. And Happy Anniversary, sweetheart.

Thinking of you always.

Lots of love,

P xxxx

Annabeth folds it back up, swallows as she puts it on the table. She goes to bed, and doesn't get up for a long time. Because that, right there, flimsy bit of paper with the spider's scrawl Percy calls handwriting on it, that might just be the last thing she'll ever hear from him.

_I always come home._

* * *

Two days later, and Annabeth remembers to take a shower. Mostly because Percy has been critical but stable for a whole day now, which is apparently a win.

She looks in the bathroom mirror and her eyes are raw and her hair is disgusting and her nails are bitten right down. Percy used to tell her to get that chili-flavored varnish to stop her biting them. Annabeth had told him to fuck right off if he thought she was going to wear nail polish.

Annabeth thinks she'd wear a garter and a Victoria's Secret corset for the rest of her life if she could just have Percy home. Percy would like that joke. He'd laugh and his eyes would twinkle and he'd tug Annabeth down onto the couch and say _might have to take you up on that offer one day, sweetheart_.

And this is Annabeth's mind right now, something inconsequential that she notices that triggers some stupid memory of Percy that triggers a million what-ifs; what if Percy were here, what would he do, what would he say, what would his hair look like, what would he be reading, what would we be doing.

But she needs to focus.

"Annabeth," the army doctor says gently. Her name is Rachel Dare, Annabeth remembers that, for no other reason than Percy would always tease Annabeth for never being able to refuse a dare.

Whatever.

"Yeah," she says, "sorry. I'm listening."

"It's okay. Take all the time you need."

"No, I'm okay. Go ahead."

Rachel nods, takes out a report with a very large red HERRICK – BASTION FIELD HOSPITAL stamp on the front.

"This is the surgeon's report, I had it sent back because I don't think anyone's properly explained Lieutenant Jackson's injuries to you," Rachel says, "that sound about right?"

Annabeth nods. Her stomach seems to claw at her from the inside out.

"Okay, so, stop me if there's anything you don't understand," Rachel says, and the stitched 'Dare' stands out on her starkly pressed uniform. She and Percy had a friend with that last name, once, she thinks vaguely.

She needs to focus.

Rachel begins. It's quite the list. Percy's going to feel so tough when he gets home.

If, Annabeth reminds herself, because she was given a talk yesterday. A lowering-your-expectations talk.

When, her brain argues stubbornly. But.

Percy has a shattered collarbone and shoulder blade, seven broken ribs. His lungs are both punctured; one is working again, one is not. He's on breathing assistance. He's on blood thinners and thickeners at the same fucking time, because they need to stop the internal bleeding but avoid clotting in his brain. He possibly has an infection, a gaping wound in his arm not treated properly, because it was the only injury not set to kill him so it was put aside. There's blood in his chest cavity, fluid that they have to keep draining.

He's not awake, like his body's too tired, too broken, to wake him up, too preoccupied just holding itself together.

Annabeth knows the feeling.

Rachel stops talking, and there's only one question Annabeth has, the question that's been on her mind for four days.

"What are his chances?" Annabeth asks quietly, finally. "Really. What…what are the chances he's coming home?"

Rachel blinks, like she's weighing up whether to tell the truth. The guardedness on her face drops. "Sixty per cent," she says softly, "sixty percent chance you'll get him back home."

_You don't have to call if you don't want to. If. You know. If it's gonna upset you._

Annabeth throws up for the first time since critical but stable, because if that's the last thing she's going to get to say to Percy, she swears she'll never say anything again.

* * *

Percy wakes up five days, three hours, and forty-seven minutes after the bomb.

Annabeth finds out twenty-two minutes later.

"God," she breathes, laughs tiredly and humourlessly into her fist, "oh, god."

"It's good, Annabeth," Captain Hazel Levesque says; she's come to deliver the news. "Not out of the woods. But it's good."

Annabeth calls her mother, her brother, her friends back home, because she wants to share this. Wants to tell anyone who'll listen, because maybe if everyone knows, whoever's up there pulling the strings might just spare her.

* * *

Percy's awake and Percy's weak and Percy's asleep, a lot, actually, for someone who's being spoken of as awake, but whatever.

Annabeth doesn't get to talk to him.

She begs, just for five minutes, just to hear his voice. But it's a blanket no, they can't get his heart rate up because he absolutely cannot start bleeding again, nothing can throw off the all-too-fragile balance his body is trying to hold onto right now. They're keeping him sedated a lot of the time anyhow, just to maintain that. They promise that Annabeth won't want to speak to him right now, anyway, he's delirious from the drugs, body exhausted, his voice is probably shot, they say.

Annabeth's briefly furious, irrationally so. She locks herself in the bedroom and refuses to speak to anyone for an hour, then realizes she's being stupid.

They need her to sign some forms; she's Percy's medical proxy after all. So she puts her game face on and opens the door, walks back out to the living room that more or less resembles a small army base now.

They smile at her, pitifully. She hates that, like she's a kid throwing a temper tantrum.

"Sorry," she says, and she hopes it's convincing.

* * *

Sometimes, Annabeth thinks, the sun can't quite break through the clouds, bright as it may be.

(Two weeks since the bomb is when they get the news, and Annabeth's whole timeframe now seems to be since the bomb.)

Percy gets a fever overnight, 107. They have to sedate him, again, because his body's on fire and he's in pain. It's hurting him, tearing through his already barely-there immune system. Percy's hurting, and it makes Annabeth want to scream. The wound on his arm is apparently getting worse and there's an infection working its way through his bloodstream, just as they were going to send him to England, to the US Army hospital there.

Annabeth doesn't believe in a god. Never has; as far as she can see, no god has ever done much for her, or for anyone else for that matter.

She prays anyway.

* * *

They've kept Percy sedated for three days. By now, the fever's subsiding, slowly, but his arm is toxic, skin burning and seeping god knows what, and Percy isn't sleeping, is writhing all alone in a field hospital up to his eyeballs in painkillers, and the thought of it makes Annabeth shudder. They've decide to put him back under, but for some reason, Annabeth hasn't gotten the call that it's been successful yet. It usually takes fifteen, sixteen minutes for the confirmation to get back to Annabeth, but not today.

Something, she assumes, is wrong.

It's been twenty-six minutes, and where the fuck is Rachel, because she was meant to walk in here ten minutes ago and give a nod and a reassuring smile that Annabeth was supposed to take a little comfort from. And that hasn't happened yet, not today.

Rachel comes in. It's been thirty-nine minutes. She looks strung out.

"What happened?" Annabeth asks, voice rough. She thinks her heart rate would pick up, if it could, but it's been going like this for two weeks now. She's maxed out on clichéd reactions to stress.

Rachel runs a hand through her hair, looks at Annabeth for a long time, as though she's appraising her, trying to see if she can take whatever she's about to say. Annabeth's sure she can't, but she straightens up anyway.

"He…" Rachel starts, "Jackson won't take the sedative. Mask or IV. Won't let them do it."

Annabeth opens her mouth, doesn't understand, so closes it. "Wh…" Annabeth starts, "why?"

"We're not sure. Delirium, maybe, or the pain's screwing him up. Anger, we're not sure. He's been taking a lot of drugs. Sometimes there are effects like this, but we need to get him down again. Give the antibiotics a chance to kick in."

"So do it." Annabeth doesn't mean it to sound cold. She's just so tired, doesn't understand why it all has to be so hard. So up and down, hopeful one minute and horrible the next. She's so exhausted.

"We can't," Rachel says, "it's not necessary sedation. It's a course of treatment, but it's not necessary. We can't just give it to him without his consent."

Annabeth sighs, turns from Rachel and starts for the window. Of course they can't. Why would it be any different than every other thing they've done in the last two weeks.

"So," Rachel says, "we want you to talk him into it."

Annabeth turns back around to look at her so fast that she hits her knee on the coffee table. She doesn't even register it.

"What?" she asks hoarsely.

Rachel looks genuinely troubled by this, like she's trying to keep Annabeth's hopes down. "Lieutenant Jackson has suffered a major trauma and hasn't seen or heard anyone familiar for two weeks," she says, "he's disoriented, I'm sure. Scared. We think it might help, if he hears your voice."

Annabeth blinks, nods at her to go on.

"He's not going to be able to talk back, he's still on the ventilator. But just talk to him. Tell him all the boring mundane things you can think of, anything that'll make him feel like he's at home."

No. Her brain is overrun with questions and impossibilities and problems and no. She sits back down, shaky.

"I can't do this," Annabeth whispers. "I…I can't…what, tell him how the weather is and, and, no," she says.

"I know," Rachel says gently, "I know. It's a lot. But I need you to do this, for him. Talk to him. Tell him you're waiting for him, that you'll see him soon."

"And will I?"

She doesn't mean to say it. Doesn't mean it to spill out like that, harsh and cracked and blunt. Rachel swallows, nods.

"Yes," she says, "you will. Once we put him under for a couple of days, drugs'll clear his infection, he'll go to England. He'll stay there for a bit, maybe have a couple of procedures done, then he'll come home. Remind him of that. Remind him you're here."

Annabeth sits back down, bites her nail. She doesn't want to do this, because what if she messes it up, what if she makes it worse, what if Percy doesn't want to hear her voice, doesn't remember her in his state of drug-induced delirium.

Annabeth doesn't think she could handle that.

"He knows that," she says, "he knows it already."

"And if it were you, wouldn't you like a reminder?"

Annabeth breathes in sharply at that, flicks her eyes up to Rachel.

Her brain stops whirring, like someone's jammed the gears. Because yes, yes, yes, a thousand times over, of course she would. If it was her, and she was getting the chance to hear Percy's voice, she'd want it so much.

Yes.

"Yeah," she says finally, "yes, okay. Do it."

There's no going back after that. The link to the field hospital is set up in a matter of minutes, Annabeth's given a phone and pushed down on the couch and someone's dialing her through, speaking to nurses and doctors and staff on the ground, making sure they can put Percy straight through to the OT when they need to.

"Try not to cry," Rachel says, and Annaberh just stares at her. "I know it's hard. But we want Jackson calm, not anxious and hyped up. Try not to cry. Just tell him whatever pops into your head, things you've seen on TV, things you'd tell him if he was making his weekly call. Tell him you love him. Then tell him to take the goddamn sedative."

Annabeth blanches, and Rachel smiles.

"Lieutenant Jackson will hear your voice and he'll take the drugs and he'll get better," Rachel says. "We do this a lot. Every month. It works. You're helping him get better."

Annabeth nods, opens her mouth to speak, but is overridden by Lieutenant di Angelo striding over.

"We're linked to the OT phone," he says. "When you're ready."

Annabeth isn't ready. She brings the phone to her ear anyway, takes a deep breath.

"Hello?"

"Ms. Chase?" She's startled at the brusque voice, guesses it's a nurse.

"Yes," she says, "hi."

"Hi. As they've probably told you, we're having a bit of trouble getting Percy to go back under." It's awfully refreshing, hearing someone call him Percy. "Are you ready to talk to him?"

No.

"Yes," she says.

"Okay. I'm giving him the phone now."

She hears a soft crinkle, rustling in the background, the nurse saying, here, we have someone on the phone for you. She sounds like she's smiling a little. She wonders if Percy is smiling too. If he can smile.

She can hear the ventilator, methodic, slow, in and out. It calms her. Everything feels quiet. Annabeth takes another breath, tries to stop herself from throwing up or saying something selfish and stupid and ridiculous; why were you out there, why weren't you being careful, why aren't you home safe.

"Hi," she says instead, shakily, and before she can get another word in hears a flurry of activity, something metal clattering to the floor, the beep of the monitor getting a little faster. _Shh_, she hears the nurse say, _shh, shh, shh, it's okay_.

"Don't make a scene, Percy," she says with a little smile, vision going a bit blurry through the tears in her eyes. She doesn't know what's happening on the other end of the line, but the monitor settles. She can hear Percy breathing again.

"Hi, darling," she says, and she can hear Percy struggling around the breathing apparatus, like he's trying to get words out.

And the thing is, Annabeth realizes in that moment, he doesn't need to get them out. Doesn't need to be able to speak. They've had this conversation so many times before. She knows what Percy wants to say.

Suddenly, she knows exactly what to do.

_How are you, sweetheart?_ It's almost like she can hear it; almost, almost, almost.

"I'm good, baby," she says, biting down on her lip so she doesn't make any noise, doesn't cry, because she needs to calm him down, not rile him up. "It's cold, actually. Bit weird for August."

She pauses, squeezes her eyes shut tight and counts to three, tries to center herself.

"I'm, um," she says, "I got you tickets the other day, to Rihanna in October. I'm gonna take you. I'll wine and dine you, Jackson."

She looks up. Rachel gives her an assuring little nod.

"And then you're gonna let me take you to Vampire Weekend. And I—I got Frank Ocean for March," she says with a teary laugh, hooking her hand over her shoulder, like she's protecting herself from all of this, "and you'll pretend to have fun, because he's a legend."

She has no idea what she's even saying.

"We beat the Lakers this weekend," she goes on, sees the paper lying on the table, "they're done for. Nearly out of the top four. They say the Packers will make it, if they win their next two. Miracle, isn't it," she muses as though Percy was a subway ride away. She digs her fingers into her thigh. Rachel nods again. "Oh, and I forgot to record The Voice for you, but that beefy guy got out. He sang Johnny Cash or something, it was horrible."

She pauses, listens for the sound of Percy's breath, the slow beep. Rachel taps her watch, keep going, she mouths.

"I, um," she says, because she's got to do this now, "I don't have a lot of time, I guess. But you're sick, Perce," she says, "and, and I'm gonna get you back sooner if you do what they say."

She pauses, blinks out the tears in her eyes. She doesn't sniff, doesn't want Percy to hear it.

"And I love you. So much. I'm gonna be there when you get home. I'm gonna be at the base and I'll take you home but before we can do that," she says, smiling a little through her tears because in spite of it all, she can hear Percy breathing, and the gravitas of that has kind of just hit her, "before we do that, you've got to let them put you back to sleep for a bit."

She hears a small grunt on the other end of the line. She has no idea what it means, so she uses her gut instinct instead. It's all she's ever needed with Percy, really.

"I know you're scared," she says, "I know, and you're being so brave. I'm so proud of you," she whispers, "but you're in pain, and. And I can't, you know. I can't sleep when I know you're hurting."

She pauses. There's a silence, like the world has stopped turning just to witness this. Annabeth doesn't do words a lot. She loves with touches and gestures and that look she knows she gets in her eyes that says _I can't see anyone else in this room but you_. But words are all she has now, barely. So she has to keep going.

She wipes at her eyes roughly, furiously.

"You, um. In your letter. You said it was 1,096 days, right?" she asks, "you remember that? Well, today it's 1,115. And, Percy, I want to make it more than 1,120."

She stops again, tries to think what Percy would say to that, what she should say now. She smiles when she realizes what it'd be, tastes her own tears on her lips.

I love you.

"I love you too," she says, "and I'm gonna see you soon, okay? I'm about to go to bed. Let's…" she pauses, wonders if what she's about to say is stupid, then decides she doesn't really care. "Let's go to sleep together. I'm right here."

And she almost, almost expects a response there. There isn't one, of course, but Rachel, who's now got her ear glued to another phone, looks visibly more relaxed, gives Annabeth a thumbs up. It's all the confirmation Annabeth needs.

"Sweet dreams," she says quietly, and her voice is all raspy and broken and before she can say anything else, _I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you_, the line goes dead.

They get the call sixteen minutes later: Percy's under, and it'll be two days until they wake him again.

Annabeth doesn't intend on waking up until then, either.


	4. Chapter 4

Incrementally is Annabeth's word of the fourth week.

By the time they enter into what is the third week of veritable hell, Percy's getting stronger. Incrementally. He's staying awake for longer periods of time. Incrementally. His arm is seeping whatever the hell's coming out of it in incrementally smaller amounts. He can breathe for longer periods of time unassisted.

Incrementally.

Annabeth considers writing a letter to the Webster-Merriam English Dictionary and having the word struck from the world's collective consciousness forever.

Slowly, her chances of getting Percy home without an American flag wrapped around him are becoming higher.

And even more slowly, she allows the tiniest bit of hope to settle itself somewhere deep inside her heart.

* * *

They're bypassing England.

When they tell Annabeth that, her legs turn liquid. In her state of pure exhaustion and barely-beneath-the-surface continuous panic, she hears we're giving him a bypass in England.

After a cup of tea and a series of hurried no no no no's, she realizes that she's getting Percy home sooner than she'd expected, and for the first time in as long as she can remember (then again, she doesn't remember a lot about anything right now), she feels herself smile properly.

She calls Piper, because she thinks Piper might just understand this part.

"Hello?" Piper's talking in her zoned-out I'm an artist making art and why are you bothering me voice. Annabeth doesn't care.

"Hi," Annabeth says, and she thinks Piper half drops the phone at the sound of her voice.

"Anna!" she says, and Annabeth hears her rustle around brushes, putting things away so she can focus on something besides acrylic and pastels. "Oh my god, I didn't want to call too much, you know. Didn't want to ask for news if there wasn't anything good, you know, and I feel like I've—"

"He's coming home in three days." She sounds like a schoolgirl telling a friend she's got a date to formal, giddy and fast and the smile almost louder than her voice. Annabeth, again, doesn't care.

"Oh, Annabeth," Piper says, "That's great, that's wonderful. I'm so happy," she says, and she lets out a teary little laugh. Annabeth remembers, then, that she's not the only one who'd miss Percy, should…well. Whatever. "Wait, god, have you talked to him?"

"Kind of," she says, leaning her head back against the wall of the living room, closing her eyes for a moment, "it's a long story. Sorry, that's a bad answer. I'll tell you later. I'm just so tired."

"No, no, it's okay," Piper assures, "how is he?"

"He's really good," Annabeth says quietly, like she'll jinx it if she speaks any louder, "he's breathing by himself, like, all the time. They're getting him up for a walk today. I think they'll let me call him tomorrow, before he comes home."

Piper lets out a relieved laugh. "I don't even know what to say, I'm so happy."

Annabeth smiles, bites her lip, and this time, it's not to stop herself crying. It's to stop herself smiling like an idiot. She hasn't really let herself believe it yet, but it's different now that she's said it out loud. She's going to see her boy.

"Me too," she says. "Me too."

* * *

She gets patched through to the base five minutes before the designated call time; 1500 GMT, 1930 UDT.

She thinks her heart might flip out of her chest.

Percy apparently has different ideas. Quite exhausted from being made to get out of bed and get dressed and shower himself today, Percy is fast asleep.

They offer to wake him, but Annabeth says no, to let him get his rest, even though she wants to say yes, wake him up, do whatever you have to do to make him conscious enough to talk to me.

She doesn't, though, of course. She'll see him tomorrow, and that's enough.

She's not sure, but she thinks she falls asleep that night with a small smile on her face; her Percy smile, quiet but definitely there.

* * *

From about age four to ten, Annabeth would categorically not sleep the week before Christmas, just in case Santa should happen to pop in early.

In her last year of high school, she's pretty sure she didn't sleep one night through, too busy trying to cram a lifetime's worth of house parties into one year.

When she was nineteen, she didn't sleep because for the first time in her life she had a nice looking boy taking her out and she wasn't aboutto pass that up to get a few hours of shut eye.

And now, at twenty-six, she hasn't slept all night because Percy's coming home.

Which she supposes is understandable, in a way. Percy's miles better than that idiot Luke she dated when she was nineteen. Percy coming home is like acing every test she's ever taken to.

And really, it feels a little bit like Christmas.

It's a very strange day. For a start, her apartment is cleared out for the first time in a month. There's no one who needs to be here to feed her news, discuss every minute detail or every awful medical procedure for her to sign off on, calm her down if she loses her mind momentarily or has a little cry. It brings with it an overwhelming sense of freedom and a much welcome feeling of finality.

Annabeth makes a cup of coffee, and realizes, with a little jolt, that this time tomorrow she'll be making two.

Two might just be her favorite number in the world. Two, or one thousand one hundred thirty three.

Percy is due to land in a little over ten hours; at 5pm. Annabeth expects it's going to be the longest day of her life.

By the time it rolls around, those two hands on the clock seem bigger and slower than they've ever been, and Annabeth feels like she's possibly packed every activity in the world into the last few hours of her life. She's called her father, her brother, Piper, found Percy's phone in his bedside drawer and fished his SIM card out of the miscellaneous bowl they have on the kitchen counter, because Percy likes it working when he gets home. She's fixed the apartment up because it literally hasn't been cleaned in two months, makes sure she puts fresh sheetson the bed and restocks the fridge and even halfheartedly waters the dead plants on the windowsill, and why is she doing this because it's not like Percy's going to notice, anyway, but she needs to keep herself occupied, busy, because otherwise she thinks she'll explode with nerves and sheer joy.

She finds the card crumpled underneath her pillow, and the photo album on Percy's side of the bed, underneath the duvet. She flicks through it once more and thinks, maybe today we'll have something to add to it.

Her mother tells her to calm down, to lower her expectations, not to be disappointed if Percy's a little different.

Her brother tells her to calm down, to lower her expectations, not to be disappointed if Percy's a little different.

Piper tells her to go get him and never let him leave again. But he might be a bit different, Anna, quieter. Just give him time.

When she gets to the air base an hour and a half early, it's much the same message. She gets sat down with a Major and Captain Levesque and the psychologist assigned to Percy's case.

"We honestly don't know what he's going to be like," the psychologist says, very calm and even. His name is Frank, and Annabeth thinks Percy will love him. "Often soldiers in good spirits in the hospital can become very disconnected when they come home. They don't slip back into civilian life like they usually do, they experience mood withdrawals, that sort of thing."

Captain Levesque—Hazel, Annabeth's been told—nods, crosses her legs. "That includes the people they're closest to," she says gently. "I'm sure you've heard it before, seen it in some of Percy's colleagues. Obviously, it's common in soldiers who're just coming back from a regular tour of duty, let alone ones who've experienced a trauma like this."

Annabeth nods at her, clears her throat.

"And it's okay, to feel like you need help with that, to notify us if you think Percy's struggling at all," Frank says. "It's really important, actually. We can only see so much in his demeanor, we need those who know him best to keep an eye on him."

"Yeah," Annabeth says, "of course."

They tell her where she'll be waiting for Percy, in one of the private meeting rooms reserved for occasions like this. For security reasons, she's not allowed out on the tarmac, which somewhat wrecks the Casablanca-esque finale she'd been imagining, but whatever. It's all background.

She gets told again and again, by what it seems like every second person who passes her, to relax, to breathe, to lower her expectations and have a glass of water and be gentle and quiet and take it slowly and a million other platitudes and empty clichés.

Normally, it'd turn Annabeth into a boiling angry mess. Today, it rolls right off her. She nods and smiles and says thank you to each and every person gracing her with their advice.

It doesn't scare her.

She thinks quite possibly that nothing will scare her, anymore.

Annabeth's oddly calm. Quiet, introspective. She feels small, suddenly, not in an unpleasant way. In a way that says, what's about to happento you is so much bigger than anything that's happened before. Treasure it.

So she does. She holds it close to her heart, as close as she can, remembers all the little details, the droplets of condensation on her can of Coke, the pull in her shirt she's tugging on, the low hum of CNN playing on the small TV overhead. The frosted glass of this little room. She thinks, vaguely, that's it's all rather symmetrical. Steamed up shower before Percy left, frosted glass now he's coming home. Tears at either end, a pressure that feels like it's building up in her chest, albeit different to two and a half months ago. It's peaceful, circular, and Annabeth thinks maybe she'll write it all down one day.

The clock, hanging above her—there are too many clocks at this base, she remembers thinking. Now she wishes there were more. Clocks counting down until 5pm and clocks telling her how long until Percy's in American airspace, telling her how long Percy's been flying, how many days he's been breathing by himself, how many hours till he'll fall asleep and how many hours till he'll wake up again. Annabeth wants a clock for everything, every tiny up and down, for every time Percy will smile at her or get annoyed at her or try to convince her to dye her hair blue, for every time Percy will make her toes curl against the mattress and every time he'll make her coffee and every time he'll make Annabeth think, this is the only place I ever want to be.

Or maybe she doesn't. Maybe that's the whole joy of getting him back, that she doesn't need that, doesn't need an obsessive record of every shift and every second. Maybe that's the best thing; that Percy's in the clear, that Annabeth just has him now, doesn't need the stats and numbers and big long words to keep her holding on.

She doesn't know; then again, she doesn't mind. She's got the rest of her life to figure it out.

Annabeth's thought about this day for five weeks now, since he was hit, or for two and a half months, since he left. She's not sure what she was expecting; her usual brand of verging-on-insane energy when it comes to anything even slightly stressful, or maybe the wall she sometimes builds around herself, like she does when she's scared.

She wasn't expecting the almost transcendental peace that she feels, the way her head feels like it's finally sitting straight again, the way her heart seems to beat in a way that says it's okay, Percy's okay, everything's going to be okay, he's in the sky, he's on his way back home.

Which is why, when she feels the low rumble in the air, the growing growl of the plane that she knows is Percy's, when she hears the thud as it hits the runway, she breathes out for what feels like the first time in weeks.

Percy's home. And somehow, it feels like she is, too.

1700.

1701.

1702.

And maybe her pulse is picking up a little now, maybe it's a little warm in this room, maybe her fingertips are bumping together as they shake ever so slightly, because this is real now, there can't be more than a few hundred feet between them and Annabeth's going to—she doesn't even know, if she'll cry or laugh or yell or sort of just topple over, because she's been holding herself up on not much else but a desperate hope, and this might just be too much.

They said it'll take him five minutes to get through the base. It's 1703 now. Annabeth blinks. That's one hundred and twenty seconds. One hundred and eighteen now. Seventeen. Sixteen.

Percy's on his way. Percy's going to round the corner and he's going to be in this room, in one piece, with red in his cheeks and his lips all cracked like they are every time he flies; uniform with the sleeves rolled up and top buttons undone, boots loose. Dog tags for Annabeth tocurl around her fingers and pull him in with, the tags that Percy loops around Annabeth's neck every time he comes home, like he's clocking back in, I'm here, I'm safe.

Percy.

And the air feels thick and Annabeth doesn't even know what's going through her mind, because for all the calm and the peace of before, her head feels like it's going to burst now, like every cell in her body is about to break into two and splinter her into a million pieces, because it's been a million miles and a million days and a million close calls and a million shards in Percy's skin, a million possibilities and lucky breaks. And minutes, minutes, minutes, not only without Percy but without knowing that he was going to see the next day.

And now, now he's going to round that corner, and he's going to be all Annabeth's again.

And just when Annabeth thinks her head can't get any louder, her heart any faster.

Well.

It does.

Because Percy always makes everything burn that little bit brighter, sing that little bit louder. He makes Annabeth love more wholly and furiously than she ever thought was possible and he makes her feel so much, every day, and now.

Now, like something out of the best dream in Annabeth's head, he comes around the corner, legs, torso, and then that face that Annabeth hasn't seen in months and still knows back to front, jawline, quirked smile, bright eyes, that unruly hair Annabeth's always thought looked so out of place in uniform.

Percy's in a chair. He's pale and thinner than usual, his uniform hanging a little loose. His skin is dry and he looks fragile, tired, the whole left side of his chest covered in a tight wrapping, face cut and bruises fading.

But as soon as he sees Annabeth, she could almost swear it all falls away. The man wheeling him in gives him a tap on his good shoulder, turns back down the corridor and goes. And for one horrible second, just one, Annabeth thinks maybe he can't get up. They stare at each other, eyes roaming, as though they're checking what's changed, who's in there, behind the green and the gray after all this.

And it's almost as if once Percy decides it's his Annabeth, he finds the strength to get up. Annabeth doesn't move. She's maybe five feet from Percy, locked into place, breath coming out in ragged little hiccups, because, because, because—

"Hi."

"Hi."

They overlap and Annabeth doesn't know for the life of her who says it first. It's just them, and yeah, she thinks, two is definitely her favorite number.

Percy's balancing himself on the arm of the chair, furrows his brow for a minute until he gets his footing. His bag hangs on the back, and as he stands, Annabeth gets a good look at him. Sleeves rolled up, buttons undone, boots loose.

He's home.

And it hits her, just then, as Percy takes a small little step towards her.

He's home.

She closes that gap between them so fast that Percy barely has time to blink before they're in front of each other. She doesn't hug Percy, not straight away. He's bruised and sore and Annabeth knows his shoulder and arm must be throbbing in pain.

So she touches him, gingerly but with enough need to drown them both. Just his cheek, slowly, cups his jaw in her palm and strokes her thumb across it, watches as Percy closes his eyes at the touch, breath still, and blinks open and looks down at her and smiles like it's too much, too soon, like he can't feel this much all at once.

He presses his face into Annabeth's hand, and knocks their foreheads together, eyes shut for a long moment. When he opens them, he brings his own hand to meet Annabeth's on his cheek and holds it there. He holds her hand like he's been waiting to do it for weeks, like he just needs something of Annabeth to cling on to, to never let go of again. Annabeth thinks her hand is a pretty safe bet.

"Hey," Percy breathes, that beaming smile that makes his face light up taking over his face slowly, like he's just realizing he's here, that Annabeth's here, that it's over. He presses his lips to Annabeth's hand, again and again, kisses her palm and her fingers and her knuckles, tiny and feather light, like he can't let go, won't let go, and Annabeth thinks, please, please don't.

Percy's lips find their way from Annabeth's hand to her cheek, to the corner of her lips, settle on them briefly before her other cheek and back again. Percy's lips graze against her skin slowly, his hands clasping Annabeth's and circling around her waist and in her hair all at once, fingers pressing into the back of her head, kissing her in short little bursts, desperate and quick and shaky. Annabeth feels his hands quivering, all of him, and she can almost feel it then, how weak Percy is.

"Hey," she says gently, pulling away. There are tears on her cheeks, on Percy's too, running together, salty on both their lips. Silent tears, though, because there's more now, more than tears, there's this.

"Shh," Annabeth says, "it's okay. It's okay, it's okay, it's okay."

Percy ducks his head back down, kisses Annabeth again, panting a little, and all Annabeth can hear is breath. There's no symphony in her head, no soundtrack or band, it's just this, the sounds Percy makes as he kisses her, his lips, his hands brushing through Annabeth's hair and drifting down her back, the little sniffles and hitches as he cries, tears falling onto Annabeth's cheeks.

His breath, in Annabeth's ear and on her skin, in her hair.

"Hey," Annabeth says again, because Percy's gasping for air, like he doesn't know what he wants to do with it now he has it back, has Annabeth back. Doesn't know if he wants to talk to touch or kiss her or cry or laugh, until he forgets the most important thing. To breathe.

"I'm running out of breath," he says hoarsely, and it's the first thing Annabeth's properly heard him say and she has to close her eyes for a moment, steady herself, because he's here, talking, in her arms.

"Yeah, well. You're not allowed to do that," Annabeth says, laugh folded in with her tears. She wipes at a pretty little tear falling down Percy's cheek. "Never again, you understand?"

Percy nods, buries his head in Annabeth's shoulder, kisses her neck and the shell of her ear and nuzzles himself in there, just for a moment falling into Annabeth's warmth.

"Yeah," he says breathlessly, "I got it."

Then he draws Annabeth in, almost crushes her against his good shoulder, and her head is still swimming because it's Percy; the khaki rubbing against her cheek and that smell it carries, Percy, the tickle of his hair and the shape of his hands on her back.

It's him.

"You're home," Annabeth murmurs into his shoulder, into that silence between them that fills Annabeth up. They don't need to talk, they've got forever to do that. They just need this, right here, Percy safe in her arms, breath in his 's all.

Percy hums a low laugh into her shoulder and pulls back. Annabeth can feel his hands still shaking slightly as he moves them from Annabeth's waist to her neck. Gingerly, avoiding his injuries, he takes his tags off from around his neck, wincing a little at the pain of the movement. Annabeth opens her mouth to ask if he's okay, if she can do anything, but is silenced by the look on Percy's face.

She closes her eyes, smiles as Percy hangs them around her neck instead, a bit too long, out of place sitting next to her cardigan, but it's okay. Percy tugs on them gently: Jackson, Percy E., SC495564S, O-, No Religion, those words Annabeth has memorized like they're writtenon her heart.

"I told you," Percy says, pressing a kiss to her forehead, each of her cheeks, and finally, her lips—relearning, Annabeth thinks.

"Told me what?"

Percy smiles.

"I told you I always come home."

It's 5:28pm, and Annabeth's got her boy back.


	5. Chapter 6

Percy is pretty sure he spent a long time not waking up to Annabeth Chase. A good eighteen years, in fact. Eighteen years of waking up to his alarm clock, or to the sun sliding in through the blinds, or to his mother singing from the kitchen. On one memorable occasion he woke up in an airport terminal with Grover with absolutely no recollection of how they got there. There were more mornings than he can actually count—math was never his strong suit anyway—and as far as he can tell, he managed pretty well.

Percy feels actively sorry for the version of himself that wasted all those years, all those mornings. He wishes he could go back and shake young Percy's shoulders and tell him it gets better—not because of the rewards of doing his duty for his country, or because he's finally gotten his own apartment, and not even because his mother is getting married again—but because the day will come when he'll be able to wake up in the morning and the first thing he sees will be this wonderful, wonderful girl.

She's not awake yet, but that's to be expected. It's barely half five in the morning; the first hints of sunlight breaking through the heavy fog lay themselves over New York like a winter blanket. The night is giving way to day and in the dark gray in between Percy can make out Annabeth's sleeping form so close next to him. Even if it was darker, Percy has spent so many hours looking at Annabeth that he has no doubt in his ability to find each freckle dotting her nose without any trouble at all.

It's so rare to see Annabeth like this these days, nearly impossible for anyone who isn't Percy or maybe one of the other seven. Percy does not envy the rest of world. Sure, he envies their privacy occasionally, like the way they don't have godly parents meddling or dropping in on them randomly, and sometimes he admires their freedom, the whole ignorance-is-bliss. But at the end of the day, and especially the beginning, Percy knows what Annabeth looks like when she's sleeping. He is the only one who knows the equation for the curve of Annabeth's shoulders when they aren't tense with anxiety. He knows how many breaths Annabeth draws in per minute when she's deeply asleep like this. He knows the rise and fall of Annabeth's chest, can map it out like the waves of the ocean that move with the tide. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon is irrelevant, as far as Percy is concerned; Annabeth Chase sleeping is the real eighth wonder of the world.

As if she can feel the weight of Percy's gaze, Annabeth snuffles a bit and frowns in her sleep. Her arm fidgets for a moment and then relaxes as it makes contact with Percy's hand. Annabeth's face smooths out at that, as if simply the proof that Percy is beside her is enough to calm her subconscious. Percy isn't sure what he did to deserve this, but he'll do it a thousand times over to keep this peculiar, enigmatic, beautiful girl in his life.

"Annabeth," he whispers after a few moments, "Annabeth, sweetheart, wake up." Annabeth doesn't move, so Percy goes for his plan b. He pulls himself up just enough to lean over and tug her closer, sprawling her on top of him, burying his face in the crook of her neck and kissing his way up, along her jaw and across her cheek. He pushes his face into her hair, breathing in the smell of coconut shampoo and under it just the smell of _her_, and he grins when Annabeth finally stirs under him, groaning.

"It's early," Annabeth rasps, going for put out, but Percy can feel her answering smile against the junction of his neck and shoulder, and her fingers sliding down to lace with his sort of negate any grumpiness in her voice.

"Annabeth," Percy sing songs right into her ear, "Wake up, come on. Wake up, gorgeous girl."

Even though she's still mostly asleep, Annabeth blushes a bit at that, pushing her hand into Percy's chest in a halfhearted reprimand and then rolling away from him to bury her head in the pillows with a discontented sound. "Flattery will get you nowhere," she says, and then after a yawn, "Nope, not awake. Not waking up."

Percy had kind of been hoping for that; he's never been one to turn down a challenge. He tuts a little, wriggling over beside her to wrap an arm around her waist and curve her back into his chest. She's wearing one of his old shirts, and it's endearing oversized on her, the hem hanging down to her thighs and the collar slipping off her shoulder. Percy puts his mouth there, over the skin showing, not kissing but just touching, letting her know he's here. He's noticed how she likes that, lately; maybe it's because of what happened to him a few months ago, or maybe she's always been that way and he's only now beginning to pay attention, but Annabeth loves to be reminded that she's still got her boy and she's always going to have him, for as long as she wants him.

"I want kisses," Percy whines, muffled into her sleeve, and it's kind of ridiculous, how he gets around her, but he doesn't care.

"I want _sleep_," Annabeth says, but no, that won't do.

"Kisses," Percy says again, quieter, and he moves back behind her ear and bites softly there, the way he's learned can get to her like nothing else. "Please?" he says, shifting his hips up next to hers.

"No," Annabeth says. Percy waits for a moment, and then for another, and: "fine, okay, get over here."

"So easy, Annabeth," Percy teases, smiling as he gets up on his knees to crawl over her, holding himself up with his arms. "Always so easy."

"Do you want me to kiss you or not," Annabeth grumbles, but when Percy ducks his head to suck a mark into her neck, she mumbles something instead that sounds suspiciously like _only for you_.

It's lost in the way she tilts her head to find Percy's mouth and presses her lips against his insistently. She huffs at him low in her throat until he starts reciprocating, and then she lets her hands run up and down Percy's back gently, soothingly, seeking patterns and drawing shapes over the ridges of his spine.

It's soft and sleepy, and they're not really heading anywhere with it, just letting themselves be together in the woolen gray dawn. Annabeth's fingers are cold on Percy's shoulders, raising goosebumps on his skin like braille, and it makes him shiver. She huffs a laugh and Percy presses his fingers into her waist in the way he knows tickles, and she bats him away and he says, "No, but it is kind of chilly."

"I can work with that," Annabeth tells him, and then she moves away, out of his arms.

"No, come back," Percy pouts, and she does, this time bringing with her the sheets that had been tangled at the foot of the bed.

"There," Annabeth says, settling on top of Percy and pulling a blanket over herself. "Toasty."

"Toasty," Percy echoes, and leans up for a kiss.

Annabeth smiles at him and brushes her mouth against his, her hair falling down off her shoulders to curtain them away from the rest of the world. It's a nice kiss, the kind that makes Percy feel fifteen again, makes his lungs feel fuzzy and his heart weightless.

"Ew," Annabeth says when they pull back. "My hair's getting in your mouth."

"I think it's grosser for me than you," Percy says.

"Actually, the enzymes in your saliva are already breaking down whatever keratin and bacteria cells touched your tongue, but there isn't anything on my hair to get rid of your spit so it'll probably be there until I shampoo it. And I wasn't planning on doing that until tomorrow, but I guess now I'll do it today. So it's grosser for me," Annabeth says, looking pleased with herself.

Percy wrinkles his nose at her. "Shush," he says. "No science before breakfast."

Annabeth laughs and moves so she's lying on her side next to him instead of hovering over him. She still has a red line down her cheek from where she was sleeping on her pillow, and her eyes are hazy and content. Her hands go around Percy's neck and start smoothing down over his shoulders, her fingers lithe and scattered with little scars, from the time she dropped the can opener, or took too sharp a turn on Leo's dirt bike, or was snagged by the wire that sticks out of the side of their fridge. Other than that, though, her fingers are bare; idly, Percy thinks he should propose. Not in this moment, unplanned and with the day still milky with moonlight, but later, when everything's just right.

For now, Percy takes Annabeth's hand and folds his fingers through hers. "Good morning."

Annabeth smiles. "Good morning," she says back, and then yawns hugely.

"Close your mouth, you'll catch flies," Percy teases. "And you know how it goes after that, spiders and birds and cats, and I don't know if you can handle swallowing a horse."

He's clearly lost his marbles. But when he glances up and sees the overwhelming _fondfondfond_ shining out of Annabeth's eyes, Percy feels that same tug in his gut he has since the day they met, when he decided he would be as loud and silly and stupid as possible to get Annabeth to look at him that way.

Four and a half years later, and it's still his biggest goal in life.

It's an odd thing to think about in a moment like this, but Percy remembers his mother's face when she told him about separating from his dad. "We just lost the spark somewhere along the road," Sally had said helplessly. Percy hadn't entirely understood what she'd meant at the time, and he still doesn't now. Annabeth's head is thrown back, pale curls soft against the white of the pillows, a flush beginning to touch her cheeks and curl down her neck, across the barely-there freckles on her shoulders and past the collar of her shirt. The hair around her forehead is tangled, knotted up a bit from the way she tosses around when she sleeps, and god, if she isn't the most beautiful thing Percy has ever seen, even after all this time. Percy can't imagine that there will ever be anything he wants to look at more than this right here. Annabeth's eyes are dropping with sleep and her eyelashes are a blond smudge against her cheek, and a lump rises in Percy's throat. Maybe other couples don't have things like this, don't know how to be split open wide for each other. Maybe no one else on the planet knows it, except for the two of them. Hell, at this point Percy is perfectly willing to believe that they're the only two people on the planet at all. Maybe the world doesn't even exist outside their bedroom door. As long as he's got Annabeth, right here, like this, hands reaching for him lazily and a content smile crinkling the corners of her mouth, Percy is fine. The world can go on without them, he doesn't mind a bit.

Annabeth seems to notice how Percy has zoned out, because she drags herself back from the edge of slumber with what must be superhuman strength, and tugs gently at Percy's hair until he looks back at her.

"Where'd you go?" she asks, voice still raspy.

Percy blinks down a bit before responding, because, right. "Got a bit distracted by your face," he says, smirking, reaching down to brush a kiss against Annabeth's cheek. It's sweet and silly for how she's still pretty much asleep and his heart is pounding so fast, eager and enthusiastic just like he always gets when he starts thinking about big things like love and fate and destiny, but with the way Annabeth lights up, Percy doesn't regret it for a second. "Want to go back to bed, sweetheart?"

He moves away and plans to rebury himself in the pillows, let himself relax for a while before they have to get up, but Annabeth shakes her head and pulls him back in.

"I want you to kiss me," she says, and yeah. That Percy can do.

They kiss like they have all the time in the world. And it feels like maybe they do, with the sun only just barely beginning to stream through the curtains. The world hasn't quite woken up yet, no bustling sounds from the streets below and no alarm clocks for an hour yet. But despite her protests, Percy can tell Annabeth is slowly falling back into unconsciousness, her eyes dropping shut longer than a blink would usually warrant. He doesn't mind; they have time, and there's no need to hurry.

"Sleepyhead," he says, poking her arm.

"Am not," she says, ever the contrarian. Percy rolls his eyes and she huffs at him, but admits, "Okay, maybe I'm a little tired."

"Maybe," Percy snorts, and she bats at his shoulder. "Think you can go back to bed?"

"If you leave me be, you insatiable little monster. Let me sleep another couple of hours and we can go get doughnuts when you're ready to get up." And, leave it to Annabeth to pull out four syllable words at a time like this. But Percy is nothing if not open to bribery, especially when the bribery includes doughnuts, so instead of answering he just curls closer to Annabeth's side and lets himself be lulled back to sleep by the steady rise and fall of her breathing.

"Sounds good to me," he says. "Love you."

"Sappy," Annabeth says, but she returns it anyway. "I love you too, night. Or, morning, I don't—" she cuts off on a yawn, gray eyes slipping shut, and she's out within a few minutes.

Percy's one lucky man, there's no denying it. There's no one else in the world who gets to wake up to Annabeth Chase twice in one day.


End file.
